Insect pests cause significant losses to plants and plant products as well as attack and annoy humans and animals. In household scenarios, insect pests may act as vectors for diseases and allergic matter. Over the years, synthetic chemical pesticides such as synthetic pyrethroids, chlorinated hydrocarbons, organophosphates, carbamates and the like, have provided an effective means of pest control.
However, the public has become increasingly concerned that the widespread use of synthetic chemical pesticides may have caused detrimental environmental effects that are harmful to humans and other animals. For instance, the public has become concerned about the amount of residual chemicals that persist in food, ground water and the environment, and that may be toxic, carcinogenic or otherwise incompatible to humans, domestic animals and/or fish. Moreover, some target pests have even shown an ability to develop resistance to many commonly used synthetic chemical pesticides. In recent times, regulatory guidelines have encouraged a search for potentially less dangerous pesticidal compositions via stringent restrictions on the use of certain synthetic pesticides.
Accordingly, there is a great need for environmentally safe and pesticidally effective compositions that contain no synthetic pyrethroids, chlorinated hydrocarbons, organophosphates, carbamates, and the like, that may be used against insect pests. It would also be advantageous to provide easy to use, inexpensive compositions and methods of using these compositions for controlling these pests that provide the benefits of quick knockdown and eventual mortality of the pests.